


A New Leaf

by CaffieneKitty



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Botanical Inaccuracies, Community: watsons_woes, Gen, Geographical Inaccuracies, John Watson in Afghanistan, Pre-Series, Weather, leaves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 15:07:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4267857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaffieneKitty/pseuds/CaffieneKitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Afghanistan, John takes a quiet moment to muse about leaves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A New Leaf

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [watsons_woes](http://watsons-woes.livejournal.com/) July Writing Prompt #3: [Image: Skull leaf.](http://watsons-woes.livejournal.com/1282916.html) Not too happy with this one, but it's past the deadline now, so oh well. :-/

The leaf was wrong. Not the leaf itself, really; that looked much the same as any ash leaf John had seen in any London park. It was just that autumn leaves back home didn't get dry and crunchy, not often anyway.

The sun beat down as he sat against his pack, waiting for the word to go forward. That was Afghanistan for you: wait, wait, mayhem, wait. With a thumbnail, John cracked out tiny sections of the leaf, exposing the framework of the desiccated veins.

Leaves turned colours and fell the same here and in London and anywhere else, but in John's experience London leaves usually sogged up in the damp and rain, pulping under tyres to a fibrous brown mash along the roadsides, looking like a bowl of Weetabix left on the mess table when an alert was called. Very few truly brittle leaves.

"Whatcha doin' Doc?"

John squinted into the sun at the American-accented shadow, one of the multinational forces in the unit to which he was currently attached. "Sorry?"

The soldier squatted low and gestured at the leaf, reduced in John's hands to its skeleton.

"Off on your own here, playing with a leaf? Thinkin' about the passage of time, fragility of life, some deep bullshit like that?" White even teeth flashed in a grin.

John raised a sunburnt and sardonic eyebrow. "I'm thinking if we're positioned behind this ridge waiting for much longer, I may start to grow roots."

"Good news then. Forward ops just radioed they started the strike. We'll be moving in to bat clean up soon. Pack your crap and get ready."

"I'm always ready," John said, setting the bones of the ash leaf down on a rock, picking up his pack and moving forward.

-.-.-  
(that's all. Meh.)


End file.
